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Comment by FredPret | Hacker News Reader

The poor VO2Max estimates on the Apple Watch is why I'm phasing out of wearing one.

I track my actual VO2Max measurements in Apple Health via a shortcut, and I don't need a daily made-up number messing up my data.

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Why is Vo2Max important for people who aren't professional athletes? It's not that I'm not curious about my number I'm just not sure how helpful it is going to be - I need to understand what pace I can hold 5k, 10k, 21k and eventually 42k. I think the best way to know that is racing again and again and getting a good feel for your aerobic / threshold zone. Whether my Vo2max is 51 or 52 - does it matter to me?

To me it's a measurement of roughly how not-dead I am

Unless you're getting it tested in a lab, the number is not very accurate. Genetics also plays a large part in how much you can raise it.

For most casual people it's just a single data point that seems all encompassing so they go:

number goes up = good.

Most professional athletes don't really care about vo2 max all that much.

> looking at VO2 max in relation to all-cause mortality, we see a very clear trend. Simply bringing your VO2 max from ‘low’ (bottom 25th percentile) to ‘below average’ (25th to 50th percentile) is associated with a 50% reduction in all-cause mortality. When you go from ‘low’ to ‘above average’ (50th to 75th percentile) the risk reduction is closer to 70%!

https://peterattiamd.com/category/exercise/vo2-max/

But isn't it one of those things where someone with a higher VO2 is likely doing healthy things that they have lower risk. Rather than a lower risk simply because their VO2 is higher.

I would love to see how this works. Where can I learn more? I’ve been pretty dissatisfied with the VO2Max on the watch overall.

You can create a shortcut that prompts you for text input, then appends the current datetime, and saves it to the health metric of your choice. You then export this to your home screen.

So when you get good data for your VO2Max (or anything else, really), you can easily save it and look at it on the Apple Health graphs.

The only way to get the Watch to stop messing it up with its daily hallucinated number is to turn off all fitness tracking (in the Privacy settings of all places).

But then half the reason for having the watch goes away.

How often do you do metabolic stress tests?

As the OP mentioned, absolute numbers are garbage, but trends are useful. Once a year just get an actual VO2Max test to peg the watch values too.

Where do you get a VO2Max test?

I just googled around and there were plenty of testing facility options in my metro area (Boston). Cost was reasonable too, typically less than <$100.

The trends aren’t really useful either unless you are recording strenuous exercise with the watch. I do a lot of cycling and my fitness in terms of how much power I can put out and for how long and my average heart rate for the same power has increased vastly, yet according to Apple my VO2 max has stayed consistent at around 45 for years since I only record walking exercises with it. I guess there’s not much it can tell if you only hit the mid 80s bpm at most during an exercise.

I realise it’s also another estimate but based on my cycling exercises Garmin is estimating my VO2 max at 55 and it does show a progression in my values.

The trends are garbage too. According to my watch my VO2Max has swung wildly between 55 and 45 over the last year, while every other measurement points to my fitness staying mostly steady.

Mine swings around as well, and I attribute it to the fact that Apple only uses Outdoor Walk, Outdoor Run, and Hiking to estimate VO2Max. Mine trends down in the winter months when most of my intense cardio is happening indoors on the treadmill or elliptical machine, and most of my outdoor activities are leisurely walks with the dog in poor conditions.

I find that my scores are mostly determined by how well I sleep the night before I do the workout.

Tracks with my numbers. I oscillate between 48 and 36, but my fitness is the same, I am just doing different activities.

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